Castleton’s 22 points not enough in loss
AUBURN, ALA. — K.D. Johnson scored 23 points and No. 9 Auburn extended its winning streak to 11 with a 85-73 victory over Florida on Saturday night.
Auburn held off a big second-half surge by Florida (9-5, 0-2 SEC), which was led by Colin Castleton’s 22 points and 10 rebounds.
“He was terrific, he was poised and he played within himself,” Gators coach Mike White said. “He missed a couple of shots, but his confidence level didn’t waver.”
Anthony Duruji scored 14 for the Gators while Myreon Jones added 13.
Jaylin Williams netted a season-high 14 points for the Tigers (14-1, 3-0), and Wendell Green Jr. added 13 for an Auburn team that outscored Florida 35-9 in bench points. Jabari Smith had 13 points and five rebounds.
Florida trailed by as many as 13 points in the first half but cut Auburn’s lead to one on a 3-pointer by Duruji with 8:37 left. Auburn answered with a quick pull-up 3-pointer by Smith. Johnson and Green then hit stepback 3-point ers of their own to extend the Tigers’ lead to double-digits again.
“I thought Auburn was terrific,” White said. “I thought we were pretty good. I think Auburn would have beat 99 percent of teams in college basketball tonight with the way they shot the ball. They hit some late-clock daggers, they hit some contested floaters, some other contested jumpers, mid-clock shots and executed well. They were really good tonight, especially offensively. They are one of the best defensive teams in the country.
“I thought we missed some clean looks and still came in here and got 73. We only had 12 turnovers, and really cleaned some stuff up after some turnovers early. I thought we defended the glass pretty well, even though they made a lot of them. I thought we got better here these last three days. It’s a tough SEC schedule.”
The Gators drew two tough matchups — No. 15 Alabama and No. 9 Auburn — to open SEC play this week.
White’s team had strong stretches in both losses, but it will need to play more consistently across two halves to bounce back from an 0-2 start in the league when Florida hosts LSU on Wednesday.